When Pete Sampras won his last professional match by beating Andre Agassi in the 2002 US Open final, he earned a record-extending 14th Grand Slam title and equaled Jimmy Connors’ record of five US Open men’s singles crowns. The American also ended his career after spending 286 weeks at No. 1 in the PIF ATP rankings.
Those numbers seemed insurmountable at the time, but all three records were eventually equaled or broken by the Big Three. Still, there is at least one Sampras record that has remained untouchable: his six consecutive year-end No. 1s, from 1993 to 1998. Roger Federer accomplished the feat four years in a row (2004-2007) and Novak Djokovic did it three straight times, while Rafael Nadal never finished No. 1 in consecutive seasons.
“It’s an ultimate achievement. It will probably never be broken,” Sampras said of the milestone, which was confirmed on November 26, 1998. “I’m trying to stay humble through all of this, but the record speaks for itself. It’s a little overwhelming.”
During Sampras’ six-year reign, he was knocked off the top six times and repeatedly struggled his way back to the top of the PIF ATP Rankings.
He never came closer to year-end honors than in 1998, when Marcelo Rios ranked him No. 1 twice for a total of six weeks. After a semi-final defeat to eventual champion Patrick Rafter at the US Open, Sampras held a narrow lead over the Chilean at the top of the PIF ATP rankings. The final two months of the ATP Tour season would determine whether Sampras could break Connors’ record of five consecutive No. 1 finishes at the end of the year.
In an all-out effort to stop Rios, Sampras competed in seven ATP Tour events in October and November. Rios played six in his own mad dash to the finish.
“It wasn’t fun, I’ll be honest with you,” Sampras said. “I had one chance to break this record, this record for six years in a row. I thought, ‘Okay, if I have to be here [in Europe] another three or four weeks, I’ll do it.’ And I did it.
“It felt great, but emotionally it definitely took a lot out of me, even for years to come. It’s very difficult to stay No. 1, and to do it six years in a row… For me in my career, I look back on that – and I’ve won a lot of majors and I’ve done some great things – but to stay No. 1 for all those years I think was my biggest achievement, just to be dominant. And to not just stay No. 1 for six months or a year, but to really amplify that.”
Sampras’ run in 1998 began with a first round defeat in Basel, before crucially claiming his fourth title of the season as a late wild card in Vienna the following week, just as Rios himself lifted a trophy in Singapore. (Sampras’ spot in Vienna came courtesy of Boris Becker, who offered his own wild card to the American.) Both men then traveled to Lyon, but withdrew from the tournament as their bodies broke down; Sampras withdrew before the quarter-finals with a back problem before Rios retired in his semi-final against Tommy Haas.
Next up were two ATP Masters 1000s in Stuttgart and Paris. While Rios reached the quarter-finals in both, Sampras reached the semi-finals and finals of the respective tournaments, consolidating his lead in the PIF ATP rankings.
But Sampras was stuck in Stockholm, where the mental toll of his late season effort was clearly visible. After losing a first-set tiebreak in an eventual three-set defeat to world number 29 Jason Stoltenberg, the typically stoic American smashed his racket in a rare outburst.
“The European circuit in the fall is no fun, even in the best of times,” Sampras wrote in his autobiography “A Champion’s Mind.” “It’s cold, it gets dark early and you play night matches in huge arenas under artificial lights. At the end of the long, tough Grand Slam season, that atmosphere can make you feel like you’re living in a strange, parallel universe.”
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However, the American’s exit in the opening round in Stockholm had a silver lining: It gave him two weeks off for the ATP World Tour Championships (now the Nitto ATP Finals), where No. 1 honors would be decided at the end of the year.
Sampras went into the Hannover season finale with a slim 33-point lead in the PIF ATP rankings, meaning he needed to match or better Rios’ total at the year-end show to complete his No. 1 mission. As the pressure mounted, Sampras rediscovered his top form in the group stage, posting a 3–0 record and losing just fifteen games in six sets against Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Carlos Moya and Karol Kucera.
While the American was defeated in the semi-finals by eventual champion Alex Corretja – two years after Sampras’ epic 1996 US Open quarter-final victory against the Spaniard, in which he threw up on the court – he had secured the year-end No. 1 title well before the knockout rounds. Rios, after losing to Tim Henman in his opening match, was forced to withdraw from the event with a back injury, thus confirming Sampras as number 1. He was eating pasta at his hotel when he heard the news.
Sampras’ six consecutive year-end No. 1 rankings remains a PIF ATP Rankings record. Only Sampras and Djokovic, who have achieved year-end No. 1 honors eight times, have achieved the feat more than five times in total.
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